3^  YV\  _  W,  v  5 

\ 


Co-operation  from  the 
Home  Base  in  Missionary  Admin¬ 
istration  on  the  Foreign  Field 


Being  a  Paper  Presented  to  the  For¬ 
eign  Missions  Conference  of  North 
America,  January  9,  1917,  at  the  An¬ 
nual  Meeting  in  Garden  City,  New 
York,  by  the  Sub-Committee  on  Prin¬ 
ciples  and  Methods  of  Administration, 
of  the 


Committee  of  Reference  and  Counsel 


PRICE  FIVE  CENTS 


FOREIGN  MISSIONS  CONFERENCE  OF  NORTH  AMERICA 

25  MADISON  AVENUE 
NEW  YORK 


CO-OPERATION  FROM  THE  HOME  BASE  IN  MIS¬ 
SIONARY  ADMINISTRATION  ON  THE 
FOREIGN  FIELD 

By  the  Committee  on  Principles  and  Methods  of  Ad¬ 
ministration 

Charles  R.  Watson,  Chairman 

ED.  F.  COOK  FLETCHER  S.  BROCKMAN 

W.  I.  CHAMBERLAIN  DWIGHT  H.  DAY 

ROBERT  E.  SPEER  MRS.  W.  A.  MONTGOMERY 

The  very  wording  of  the  topic  announced  presupposes, 
first,  that  the  administration  of  missionary  work  is  recognized 
as  legitimately  centering  largely  on  the  foreign  held ;  and, 
secondly,  that  a  legitimate  and  vital  part  of  that  administra¬ 
tion  should  emanate  from  the  Home  Base. 

By  way  of  introduction,  it  may  be  worth  while  to  explain 
why  a  discussion  of  this  topic  appears  to  be  called  for  at  this 
time. 

First  of  all,  it  may  be  stated  that  both  missionaries  on  the 
foreign  held  and  Boards  and  Societies  at  the  Home  Base  are 
either  agitating  the  question  or  moving  actively  along  the 
lines  of  its  suggestion.  In  several  instances  coming  under 
investigation  the  request  emanated  from  the  foreign  held, 
that  the  Board’s  representative  should  visit  the  helcf.  Letters 
had  proved  unsatisfactory.  The  problems  to  be  dealt  with 
were  too  intricate.  The  absence  of  adequate  Board  co-oper¬ 
ation  and  information  was  too  damaging.  For  these  rea¬ 
sons,  Missions  themselves  requested  fuller  co-operation  on 
the  part  of  the  Board.  In  other  cases,  again,  the  Boards  at 
the  Home  Base  have  become  conscious  of  their  isolation, 
estrangement,  limited  knowledge  and  inadequate  contribution 
to  the  problems  facing  their  missionaries  and  have  begun  to 
bestir  themselves  as  to  the  exercise  of  their  legitimate  func¬ 
tions  in  sharing  in  the  administration  of  work  abroad. 

In  the  second  place,  present-day  conditions  present  many 
problems  which  are  either  new  or  new  in  the  measure  of  their 
importance  and  which  call  for  co-operation  from  the  Home 
Base  in  the  administration  of  work  on  the  foreign  field.  The 
Secretary  of  a  leading  American  Board  enumerates  these 
three : 

(a)  The  interdenominational  movements  which  require  constant 
conference  at  home,  many  of  which  can  only  be  carried  through  suc¬ 
cessfully  in  their  first  stages  at  the  home  end.  such  as  the  proposed 
university  and  women’s  college  for  Japan.  This  home,  co-operation 
depends  upon  the  intimacy  of  relationship  between  the  home  admin¬ 
istration  and  the  work  on  the  field  and  the  courageous  assumption 
offered  by  the  home  agencies  of  responsibility  for  field  action. 


(b)  Because  of  the  ecclesiastical  problems  which  constantly  arise 
both  in  each  denomination  and  between  denominations  in  the  move¬ 
ment  of  co-operation  and  union.  These  problems  must  often  be  dealt 
with  in  the  home  ecclesiastical  courts  by  the  Mission  Boards  in  be¬ 
half  of  the  Missions  and  the  Churches  on  the  field. 

(c)  The  problems  growing  out  of  the  special  object  gifts  and  the 
financial  support  of  the  work  and  money  considerations  which  affect 
Mission  policy.  Oftentimes  a  proposed  gift  at  home  for  a  particular 
work  or  institution  may  involve  in  the  most  radical  way  the  policies 
of  a  Mission  on  the  field. 

In  the  third  place,  the  difficulty  of  initiating  and  then  of 
maintaining  proper  co-operation  and  supervision  from  the 
Home  Base  gives  unique  value  to  this  discussion.  It  seems 
certain  that  almost  every  Board  anti  Society  and  every  Mis¬ 
sion  and  missionary  will  find  the  subject  one  of  vital  interest. 
Proper  co-operation  and  supervision  may  mean  more  and  it 
may  mean  less  than  now  obtains.  There  is  such  a  thing  as  a 
Board  meddling  too  much  in  the  affairs  of  its  Missions,  and 
there  is  likewise  such  a  thing  as  unmercifully  casting  these 
Missions  adrift  to  work  out  their  own  salvation.  What  les¬ 
sons  each  will  need  to  learn  will  depend  largely  upon  the  stage 
to  which  each  has  arrived  in  its  missionary  development. 

Speaking  generally,  the  relationship  which  the  Board  at  the 
Home  Base  sustains  to  its  Missions  seems,  according  to  in¬ 
vestigation,  to  pass  through  three  stages  as-  follows : 

(a)  First,  the  relationship  is  personal.  Each  missionary 
communicates  with  his  Board  and  the  administration  of  the 
work  is  almost  entirely  from  the  Home  Base.  This  is  natural 
and  unavoidable,  for  the  missionaries  in  such  new  fields  are 
few  and  an  organization  on  the  field  is  impossible.  Further¬ 
more,  such  new  missionaries  are  inexperienced  where  the 
Board  at  the  Home  Base  possesses  the  experience  of  its  other 
Missions  or  of  the  Missions  of  other  churches. 

(b)  The  Second  stage  arrives,  when  with  the  increase  in 
the  number  of  missionaries  or  the  growth  of  the  Native 
Church,  a  Missionary  Association  or  an  Ecclesiastical  Confer¬ 
ence  becomes  organized  and  takes  over  the  administration  of 
the  work  hitherto  distributed  between  missionaries  and  the 
home  office.  Perhaps  this  process  is  carried  too  far  and  then 
comes  the  Third  stage. 

(c)  Here  a  new  emphasis  is  placed  upon  the  functions  to 
be  performed  by  the  Board  at  the  Home  Base  in  co-operating 
and  supervising  and  in  making  adjustments  and  giving  sugges¬ 
tions  to  the  workers  and  their  work  on  the  foreign  field. 

At  whatever  stage  a  Board  and  its  Missions  may  have  ar¬ 
rived,  it  will  be  of  the  highest  advantage  for  them  to  gain  a 
clear  idea  of  the  part  which  the  Home  Base  should  take  in 
the  administration  of  work  on  the  foreign  field.  In  all  prob- 

2 


ability  discussions  of  this  paper  will  yield  sharply  opposing 
judgments,  just  as  proved  to  be  the  case  in  letters  received  in 
connection  with  the  investigation  incident  to  its  prepara¬ 
tion.  It  may  safely  be  predicted  that  such  opposing 
views  will  be  found  perfectly  reconcilable  by  simply  noting  to 
which  of  the  three  stages  mentioned  a  Board  and  its  Missions 
have  arrived  in  the  history  of  their  missionary  development, 
and  the  inevitable  consequences  of  a  shifting  emphasis  upon 
Home  Base  authority  and  influence.  To  pass  from  one  stage 
to  another  invariably  involves  vigorous  agitation  and  discus¬ 
sion.  Missionary  and  ecclesiastical  tradition  will  be  invoked 
against  any  change  in  the  methods  or  in  the  degree  of  admin¬ 
istrative  authority  exercised  at  the  Home  Base.  Every  argu¬ 
ment  will  be  found  to  be  a  “two  edged”  sword.  It  will  be 
said  that  direct  authority  at  the  Home  Base  leaves  each  mis¬ 
sionary  freer  than  where  he  is  subjected  to  the  majority  vote 
of  his  fellow  missionaries.  It  will  also  be  argued  that  author¬ 
ity  at  the  Home  Base  is  autocratic  and  unreasonable.  The 
argument  of  expense  will  be  invoked  likewise  both  against 
Mission  organization  involving  Mission  meetings  and  against 
Home  Base  administration  involving  journeys  of  Secretaries 
to  the  foreign  field.  Such  confusion  of  thought  and  opinion 
argues  for  the  value  of  discussing  the  topic  under  considera- 

.  •  i  -  -w-  irr 

tion.  ,  i 

In  the  fourth  place,  a  present-day  absorption  of  Boards  at 
the  Home  Base  in  the  task  of  cultivating  the  home  Church 
and  of  raising  money,  makes  it  necessary  to  place  a  new  em¬ 
phasis  upon  the  service  to  be  rendered  by  the  Board  at  the 
Home  Base  to  its  Missions  abroad  in  the  administration  and 
supervision  of  their  work.  Comparing  foreign  missionary 
Board  activities  in  America  todav  with  those  of  a  generation 
ago,  one  cannot  .fail  to  notice  that,  relatively,  at  least,  the 
emphasis  has  shifted  very  largelv  from  functions  of  foreign 
missionary  administration  to  those  of  money  raising.  Where 
formerly  the  Boards  were  largely  dependent-  for  their  finan¬ 
cial  resources  upon  the  activities  of  volunteer  agencies  within 
the  congregation  or  upon  the  personal  initiative  of  mission- 
arv  pastors  and  other  ecclesiastical  leaders,  foreign  Boards 
today  have  laraelv  taken  over  these  functions.  It  is  now  the 
Boards  that  plan  and  execute  missionary  campaigns  within 
the  home  Church.  It  is  their  Secretaries  that  have  become 
chargeable  with  the  raising  of  budgets.  Such  movements  for 
the  cultivation  of  the  home  Church  as  the  Laymen’s  Mission¬ 
ary  Movement  and  the  Missionary  Education  Movement  af¬ 
fect  their  chief  eoiPncts  with  the  Churches  thev  seek  to  culti¬ 
vate,  through  the  Boards  of  the^e  Churches,  until  it  may  be 
seen  that  the  life  and  thought,  the  administrative  powers  and 

3 


energies  of  foreign  Boards  today  threaten  to  become  em 
gulfed  in  problems  connected  with  the  home  Church  as  a 
base  of  supplies,  to  the  neglect  of  a  proper  supervision  of  the 
work  abroad  and  a  proper  co-operation  in  its  administration. 

Finally,  importance  attaches  to  the  discussion  of  this  topic 
because  according  to  the  ecclesiastical  polity  of  the  over¬ 
whelming  majority  of  the  Churches,  the  Board  is  formally  as¬ 
signed  a  position  of  final  responsibility  and  authority  in  rela¬ 
tion  to  the  Missions  of  the  Church  in  foreign  lands.  Episco¬ 
pal  Church  polity  presents  a  partial  exception  to  this  ruling, 
but  even  here  the  authority  of  the  Bishop  is  regarded  as 
shared  by  or  guided  by  the  Board  which  supports  the  work. 
The  relation  of  the  Board  of  Missions  to  the  Bishop  in  the 
case  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  is  defined  by  the  fol¬ 
lowing  Canon  :  “That  in  the  management  of  the  Foreign  Mis¬ 
sions  the  Bishops  shall  have  as  their  Council  of  Advice  the 
Board  of  Missions  for  the  general  schedule  of  expenditures; 
but  for  the  details  of  the  local  work  they  may  have  as  their 
advisers  the  Council  of  Advice  of  their  respective  Districts. 
In  the  management  and  general  expenditure  of  the  Foreign 
Missions,  the  Bishop  shall  act  with  the  advice  and  consent  of 
the  Board  of  Missions.”  Whatever  the  definition  of  relation¬ 
ship,  it  is  inherent  in  the  situation  that  the  Board  that  holds 
the  purse-strings  must  be  recognized  as  largely  responsible  for 
work  supported  bv  the  funds  it  administers.  Where  such 
authority  or  responsibility  is  conceded  or  implied,  it  is  im¬ 
portant  that  there  be  a  full  and  frank  discussion  of  the  wisest 
exercise  of  the  Board’s  authority  in  administration  and  super¬ 
vision  of  work  abroad. 

These  five  reasons  may  suffice  for  the  justification  of  this 
paper  and  serve  to  emphasize  the  vital  importance  of  the  topic. 
We  next  consider : 

I.  THE  SERVICES  TO  BE  RENDERED  BY  CO-OPER¬ 
ATION  AND  SUPERVISION  FROM 
THE  HOME  BASE 

To  remove  any  remaining  anxiety  in  the  discussion  of  the 
topic,  two  observations  may  be  made : 

(a)  The  co-operation  and  supervision  proposed  relate 
only  to  larger  questions  of  policy.  It  is  recognized  that  the 
routine  administration  of  missionary  work  belongs  properly 
to  the  foreign  field.  The  following  statement  of  tiie  rights  of 
a  Mission  to  administer  its  own  affairs  is  one  which  there  is 
no  desire  to  change  and  one  which,  with  change  in  terminol¬ 
ogy,  will  be  found  accurately  descriptive  of  the  great  major¬ 
ity  of  mission  fields :  • 


4 


“From  the  beginning  the  Board  has  granted  to  its  Missions  very 
large  liberty  in  administering  the  work  in  the  fields.  In  each  held 
there  is  an  Association  composed  of  all  regularly  appointed  mission¬ 
aries  in  the  held.  These  Associations  meet  annually,  or  semi-annu¬ 
ally,  for  the.  transaction  of  business.  The  Board  leaves  almost  en¬ 
tirely  to  the  Associations  in  the  fields  the  matters  regarding  their  in¬ 
ternal  policy,  although  it  requires  the  sanction  of  the  Board  for  the 
opening  of  new  Stations  or  of  Institutions  above  a  certain  class.  The 
meetings  of  the  Associations  are  submitted  to  the  Board  for  ap¬ 
proval.  Estimates  for  the  support  of  the  work  are  made  annually, 
and  submitted  to  the  Board  to  be  approved  and  presented  to  the 

General  Assembly.  Generally  missionaries  sent  out  by  the  Board  are 

not  appointed  to  a  particular  Station  but  are  located  by  the  Mission 
in  the  held.  The  Mission  has  power  to  transfer  funds  within  certain 
classes  and  to  transfer  missionaries  from  one  kind  of  work  to  an¬ 
other  without  reference  to  the  Board,  excepting  in  cases  where  mis¬ 
sionaries  have  been  sent  out  at  the  request  of  the  Mission  for  a  par¬ 
ticular  kind  of  work.  As  I  remarked  in  the  beginning  of  this  para¬ 
graph,  our  Missions  have  always  had  large  liberties  in  shaping  their 
own  internal  policies  and  controlling  the  work  in  the  fields.” 

(b)  A  second  reassurance  may  be  found  in  the  fact  that 

the  co-operation  and  supervision  proposed  to  be  extended 

from  the  Home  Base  to  the  foreign  held,  will  be  advisory, 
suggestive  and  persuasive  in  character  rather  than  manda¬ 
tory.  Nothing  finer  can  be  quoted  than  that  which  a  mission¬ 
ary  in  India  wrote  home  in  1857,  when  the  American  Board, 
by  a  series  of  inquiries,  sought  to  discover  whether  its  Secre¬ 
tary,  Dr.  Anderson,  on  his  visit  to  India  the  previous  year, 
had  exercised  too  autocratic  an  authority : 

“As  to  our  senior  Secretary,  I  may  say  to  you,  what  delicacy  would 
forbid  me  to  write  to  the  Missionary  House,  that  I  have  known  him 
well  for  twenty-six  years,  and  I  know  of  no  one  less  disposed  to 
exercise  authority  than  he.  In  all  his  official  intercourse  with  us, 
whether  by  letter  or  by  personal  visitation  (and  he  has  been  here 
twice),  it  has  been  always  transparently  evident  that  he  wished  to  be 
governed  himself,  and  to  have  us  governed,  by  facts  and  substantial 
arguments.  He  brings  to  the  discussion  of  every  missionary  question 
a  mind  clear,  systematic  and  comprehensive;  rich  in  the  stores  of  a 
long  and  well  husbanded  experience,  and  deeply  imbued  with  the  spirit 
of  primitive  Christianity.  Of  course,  such  a  man  must  have  positive 
opinions,  and  who  would  desire  to  see  one  in  his  position  that  had 
not?  But  I  have  never  discovered  in  him  the  slightest  inclination  .to 
domineer. 

“I  have  sometimes  thought  that,  to  a  mind  complacent  in  itself  and 
unwilling  to  yield,  no  greater  weapons  of  tyranny  can  appear,  than 
strong  facts  and  arguments,  and  so  far  as  my  knowledge  goes,  Dr. 
Anderson  has  never  wielded  any  other  weapons  of  tyranny  than 
these.” 

(1)  The  first  service  to  be  named  as  resulting  from  proper 
supervision  and  co-operation  from  the  Home  Base  is  in  the 
development  of  the  corporate  life  of  a  Mission  where  such  life 
#  is  undeveloped.  There  are  three  outstanding  causes  for  an 
imperfect  development  of  the  corporate  life  of  a  Mission. 

5 


First,  it  may  be  young.  Its  missionaries  have  not  yet  recog¬ 
nized  the  value  of  a  corporate  life.  This  is  especially  likely 
to  be  the  case  if  they  are  new  missionaries  rather  than  mis¬ 
sionaries  transferred  from  other  fields.  And  it  is  especially 
likely  to  be  the  situation  where  there  are  strong  characters 
with  accentuated  individualities.  A  Second  cause  will  be 
found  in  the  fact  that  a  Mission  is  small.  Where  there  are 
only  three  or  five  foreign  missionaries,  the  functions  and  pos¬ 
sibilities  of  a  corporate  life  will  not  easily  be  recognized.  A 
Third  cause  for  inadequate  corporate  development  will  be 
found  in  the  fact  that  a  Mission  is  spread  over  a  great  area. 
The  time  and  expense  involved  in  coming  together,  the  isola¬ 
tion  of  the  stations,  as  in  Western  China  or  many  sections 
of  Africa,  will  operate  in  the  direction  of  preventing  the  de¬ 
velopment  of  the  corporate  life  of  a  Mission.  As  in  the  days 
of  the  Judges,  each  man  is  likely  to  do  what  is  right  in  his 
own  eyes. 

The  following  opinion  expressed  by  one  connected  with  a 
large  Board  in  America  will  set  forth  the  services  which  ad¬ 
ministration  from  the  Home  Base  may  render  in  the  afore¬ 
mentioned  situations : 

“A  great  service  can  be  done  for  the  Missions  in  helping  them  to 
develop  a  corporate  life,  making  them  feel  that  all  the  work  under 
their  care  in  the  various  Stations  hangs  together  and  is  one  work. 
This  may  require  at  times  a  relinquishing  of  funds  by  one  Station 
giving  the  extra  amount  to  another  Station  because  of  some  special 
opportunity  there.  It  may  mean  that  a  certain  Mission  policy,  which 
has  been  found  to  be  successful  in  one  district,  ought  to  be  adopted 
in  other  Stations  in  order  to  promote  the  work  there.  If  the  Sta¬ 
tions  are  far  apart  geographically  the  attitude  and  the  correspondence 
of  the  Secretary  or  executive  officer  can  often  bring  them  together  in 
spirit  and  in  common  purpose.  Representatives  in  Stations  far  dis¬ 
tant  from  each  other  perhaps  do  not  see  each  other  often  and  there 
may  be  a  tendency  to  draw  away  from  each  other  and  after  a  while 
annual  Mission  meetings,  which  ought  to  bring  all  the  Station  repre¬ 
sentatives  together,  are  made  intermittent  or  are  omitted  altogether. 
Nothing  is  more  fatal  to  the  right  spirit  of  co-operation  within  a 
Mission  itself  than  such  omissions,  and  it  is  the  duty  of  the  super¬ 
vising  executive  to  insist  that  the  Mission  get  together  at  least  once 
a  year  to  talk  over  the  work  which  is  common  to  all  and  to  spend  at 
least  one  full  day  together  simply  in  devotional  study,  in  prayer  and 
in  mutual  building  up  of  the  individual  spiritual  life.  In  some  cases 
this  day  of  prayer  at  annual  Mission  meetings  has  been  omitted,  to 
the  great  detriment  of  the  work  and  to  the  spiritual  life  of  the  mis¬ 
sionaries.  When  this  serious  omission  was  pointed  out  by  an  officer 
from  the  Board  at  home  the  Mission  recognized  it  at  once  and  at  the 
very  next  annual  meeting  followed  a  very  different  policy  and  has 
reported  that  the  spiritual  life  of  the  Mission  has  been  made  new  by 
not  neglecting  this  very  important  part  of  their  combined  meeting.” 

(2)  A  second  service  to  be  rendered  is  in  the  securing  of 
general  surveys  of  the  mission  field  and  its  needs.  These  are 

6 


to  be  ‘‘secured  ’  rather  than  “made”  by  the  executives  of  the 
Home  Base,  for  it  is  the  missionaries  themselves  who  must 
contribute  to  their  making.  Only  so  will  they  be  effective, 
imparting  new  vision  and  purpose  to  the  missionary  force 
itself. 

It  is  a  matter  of  history  that  almost  all  the  general  surveys 
made  on  the  foreign  held  have  been  suggested  by  the  Home 
Base  authorities  and  this  for  several  reasons.  As  one  mis¬ 
sionary  put  it :  “Each  missionary  is  so  preoccupied  with  his 
own  station  and  district  that  he  has  little  time  or  strength  left 
with  which  to  consider  the  held  as  a  whole.  So  driven  is  he 
by  the  pressing  claims  of  his  own  daily  program  that  he  can 
not  disengage  his  mind  long  enough  to  view  missionary  pol¬ 
icy  in  its  broad  effects  across  the  years.”  Another  very  prac¬ 
tical  hindrance  to  effective  general  surveys  is  their  cost  in 
money  as  in  time.  Conferences  of  missionaries  are  required. 
Railroad  travel  and  entertainment  involve  no  slight  expense, 
and  it  is  only  as  the  Home  Base  comes  forward  and  over¬ 
comes  this  difficulty  by  providing  the  funds  that  it  becomes 
possible  to  make  the  desired  survey.  For  still  another  reason 
Home  Base  co-operation  is  important.  Missionary  surveys 
usually  involve  a  study  not  merely  of  the  area  occupied  by  a 
given  Mission  but  of  the  entire  province  or  country  of  which 
it  is  a  part.  How  inadequate  and  fragmentary  would  be  the 
survey  and  how  limited  the  conclusions  resulting  from  it,  if  a 
survey  were  to  consider  the  needs  of  only  some  arbitrary  sec¬ 
tion  of  the  Punjab  or  of  Korea  or  of  Palestine  or  of  the 
Philippines.  Yet  it  frequently  happens  that  the  life  of  a  Mis¬ 
sion  is  so  concentrated  and  its  corporate  life  so  accentuated, 
that  it  regards  itself  and  its  field  as  a  distinct  entity,  unre¬ 
lated  to  the  activities  of  other  Missions  lying  adjacent.  The 
Home  Base  ought  at  this  point  to  contribute  breadth  of  vision 
and  secure  a  more  comprehensive  survey,  because  of  the  spe¬ 
cial  opportunities  which  are  afforded  at  the  Home  Base  for 
interdenominational  fellowship.  It  is  to  be  noted,  however, 
that  in  many  instances,  through  such  field  organizations  as  the 
Federations  and  the  Continuation  Committees  in  Japan,  China 
and  India,  Missions  on  the  field  are  outstripping  their  Boards 
at  the  Home  Base  in  taking  whole  views  of  the  task  and  of 
the  field. 

(3)  A  third  service  to  be  rendered  by  the  Home  Base  is  in 
working  out  in  co-operation  with  the  Missions  abroad  general 
policies  and  general  methods  of  procedure  which  shall  gov¬ 
ern  the  life  and  work  of  the  Board  and  of  its  Missions  con¬ 
jointly.  This  would  include  policies  as  to  missionary  educa¬ 
tion,  the  Native  Church,  its  self-support  and  self-control, 
evangelistic  work  and  the  relation  of  the  several  departments 


to  each  other.  It  would  also  include  the  working  out  of  rules 
and  regulations  governing  the  holding  of  property,  its  up¬ 
keep,  the  administration  of  funds  and  other  such  questions 
involving  method  of  procedure.  A  double  advantage  will  ac¬ 
crue  from  the  participation  of  the  Home  Base  in  these  mat¬ 
ters.  On  the  one  hand,  the  Home  Base  is  undoubtedly  in  a 
position  to  make  rich  contribution  to  the  solution  of  these 
problems  out  of  its  acquaintance  with  the  experience  of  other 
Missions  and  other  Churches.  Furthermore,  because  these 
policies  are  to  determine  lines  of  work  across  not  years  but 
decades,  they  should  represent  the  conviction  not  merely  of 
the  Mission  on  the  field  but  also  of  the  Home  Base.  Nothing 
can  contribute  so  fully  to  efficiency  and  harmony  as  this  link¬ 
ing  together  of  the  judgment  of  the  Home  Base  and  the  ex¬ 
perience  of  the  Mission. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  fact  needs  always  to  be  recognized 
that  Mission  work  must  in  the  long  run  reflect  the  will  and 
wish  of  the  Church  at  the  Home  Base.  If  those  wishes  and 
aims  are  unworthy  and  inadequate,  it  is  the  duty  of  Mission 
and  Board  to  endeavor  to  correct  them,  but  any  Mission  that 
ignores  this  vital  relationship  runs  a  serious  risk  of  finding 
itself  estranged  from  its  supporters  and  seeing,  some  day,  its 
work  overturned.  Mission  policy  should  therefore  be  forged 
in  co-operation  with  the  Board  at  the  Home  Base  as  repre¬ 
senting  the  Church. 

A  Board  officer  who  recently  returned  from  visiting  some 
of  the  Missions  of  his  Board  gives  the  following  testimony 
as  to  the  general  value  of  Home  Base  influence  in  the  work¬ 
ing  out  of  missionary  policy  on  the  field.  He  says : 

“With  regard  to  special  policies  of  missionary  education,  thou¬ 
sands  and  thousands  of  boys  and  girls  have  passed  through  Mission 
schools  and  have  been  lost  to  Christianity.  In  a  great  school  in  Malay- 
asia  twenty-five  thousand  scholars  had  passed  through  the  school  and 
not  more  than  eight  hundred  could  be  identified  after  a  period  of 
years.  The  rest  had  simply  gone  through  the  school  and  nothing  was 
known  of  their  careers.  A  careful  system  of  following  up  is  not 
only  invaluable  to  the  work,  but  it  is  essential  if  we  are  going  to  get 
the  results  from  our  educational  work  that  the  Christian  Church 
should  get.  The  school  mentioned  above  has  now  inaugurated  a  card 
catalogue  system  and  is  keeping  track  of  its  graduates  and  has  a 
large  and  effective  system  of  correspondence  with  those  Who  have 
been  in  the  school  and  who  have  gone  on  into  their  life  work.  Cer¬ 
tainly  the  officer  at  the  Home  Base  can  keep  the  main  purpose  of  the 
various  lines  of  missionary  activity  before  Mission  workers  on  the 
field  to  their  great  benefit.  The  problem  cf  native  self-support  some¬ 
times  drops  out  of  the  view  of  the  missionary  closest  to  it,  but  is 
seen  in  its  true  perspective  by  a  Secretary,  especially  a  visiting  Sec¬ 
retary.  He  is  able  to  show  the  missionary  and  the  native  leaders  in 
conference  together  that  the  native.  Christians  are  not  giving  any¬ 
thing  like  a  proper  proportion  of  their  income  in  the  support  of  their 
Christian  work,  and  to  the  great  astonishment  of  the  native  Christian 

8 


leaders,  as  experience  has  shown.  A  Mission  may  actually  he  pau¬ 
perizing  the  native  Christians  and  not  know  it  until  it  is  pointed  out 
by  a  visiting  Secretary.  So  in  the  matter  of  the  leadership  of  the 
native  Church  the  Secretary  can  point  out  ways  in  which  responsi¬ 
bilities  hitherto  assumed  by  the  missionary  can  be  placed  upon  the 
shoulders  of  native  pastors  and  leaders.” 

(4)  The  contribution  of  the  Home  Base  to  foreign  mis¬ 
sionary  administration  and  supervision  should  include  spir¬ 
itual  quickening.  All  too  inadequate  is  the  recognition  of 
this  duty  resting  upon  the  Board  at  the  Home  Base  in  rela¬ 
tion  to  its  Missions  and  missionaries.  Surrounded  by  all  the 
depressing  influences  of  heathenism,  with  his  energies  con¬ 
stantly  drained  by  the  severe  exactions  of  his  overwhelming 
task,  the  missionary  needs  and  should  have  spiritual  refresh¬ 
ment  and  human  sympathy.  Where  shall  he  find  it?  He  can 
not  turn  to  his  spiritual  children  in  the  Native  Church.  He  dare 
not  draw  upon  his  fellow  missionary  whose  resources  barely 
suffice  for  his  own  needs.  Where  can  he  find  this  help  ex¬ 
cept  it  came  from  the  Board  that  sent  him  forth  and  the 
Board  Secretary  who  was  instrumental  in  his  appointment. 
The  history  of  missions  fortunately  presents  some  conspicu¬ 
ous  illustrations  of  Board  officers  who,  by  letter  and  personal 
interview,  by  visits  to  the  field  and  contacts  effected  at  home, 
have  ministered  to  the  spiritual  power  and  refreshment  of 
their  missionaries,  both  men  and  women,  renewing  their 
courage  in  days  of  disappointment,  comforting  them  in  ex¬ 
periences  of  sorrow,  and  imparting  to  them  largeness  and 
breadth  of  spiritual  sympathy  and  vision  when  petty  and 
narrowing  influences  were  threatening. 

(5)  Another  function  of  the  Home  Base  in  missionary  ad¬ 
ministration  abroad,  is  in  the  promotion  of  relationships  of 
harmony  and  the  removal  of  friction  which  may  have  devel¬ 
oped.  The  advantage  in  having  such  questions  taken  up  by 
the  authorities  at  the  Home  Base  will  be  obvious.  Five 
types  of  problems  emerge  and  while  concrete  instances  might 
be  cited  under  each  heading  and  illustrations  given  of  the 
value  of  Home  Base  co-operation  in  such  cases,  the  limits  of 
this  article  forbid  more  than  a  mere  statement  of  the  several 
spheres  where  harmony  requires  to  be  promoted  or  friction 
removed.  These  are : 

(a)  In  relationships  between  the  Mission  on  the  field  and  the 
Board  at  home. 

(b)  In  relationships  between  missionary  and  missionary. 

(c)  In  relationships  between  a  Mission  and  adjacent  Missions. 

(d)  In  relationships  between  the  Mission  (or  missionaries)  and 
the  Native  Church  (or  natives). 

(e)  In  relationships  between  Missions  and  Governments. 

9 


(6)  A  sixth  service  to  be  rendered  by  the  Home  Base  by 
its  co-operation  in  missionary  administration  abroad,  lies  not 
in  the  foreign  field  at  all,  but  in  the  life  of  the  Home  Church. 
There  are  few  things  that  help  to  stimulate  the  Board  at  home 
to  active  missionary  propaganda  like  a  vital  co-operation  of 
the  Board  in  the  administration  of  work  abroad.  Eliminate 
that,  and  the  missionary  activities  of  the  Board  lose  their 
passion  and  zeal.  They  become  less  and  less  driven  by  the 
consciousness  of  need  abroad,  and  they  are  made  to  rest  more 
and  more  upon  considerations  of  mere  financial  efficiency  and 
church  organization,  which  is  to  substitute  mere  human  ma¬ 
chinery  for  the  mighty  impulses  of  the  Spirit  of  God  and  the 
compassion  of  Christ. 

Admitting  the  values  of  Home  Base  co-operation  in  mis¬ 
sionary  administration  and  supervision  on  the  foreign  field, 
the  following  practical  question  arises : 

II.  HOW  MAY  CO-OPERATION  AND  SUPERVISION 
FROM  THE  HOME  BASE  BE  MOST 
EFFECTIVELY  RENDERED? 

Methods  :  Certain  outstanding  methods  have  been  used  by 
different  Boards  with  large  measure  of  success. 

(a)  First,  letters  and  general  correspondence.  While  every 
Board  maintains  a  measure  of  contact  with  the  field,  yet  in 
many  cases  such  correspondence  has  become  too  much  neg¬ 
lected  and  reduced  or  too  formal  and  technical  to  serve  the 
largest  interests  of  the  work.  A  Board  Secretary  writes  with 
some  feeling  as  follows : 

“The  burden  of  correspondence  must  rest  upon  the  Secretary. 
This  has  been  -one  of  my  greatest  weaknesses,  due  not  to  any  lack 
of  appreciation  of  its  importance,  but  to  a  want  of  time.  I  am 
practically  Financial  and  General  Secretary  of  our  Board.  The  mis¬ 
sionaries  feel  the  need  of  more  frequent  communications  as  much  as 
I  do,  but  there  seems  to  be  no  way  open  to  remedy  this  shortcoming. 
I  do  not  wish  to  leave  the  impression  that  no  letters  pass  between  the 
Secretary  and  the  missionary,  only  this,  that  they  are  not  as  fre¬ 
quent  as  they  should  be.” 

In  some  Board  offices,  investigation  shows  a  remarkable 
organization  and  system  cultivating  such  correspondence. 
Here  an  ^accurate  record  is  kept  of  the  correspondence  with 
each  missionary,  this  system  bringing  to  light  any  extended 
lapse  of  correspondence  with  any  missionary.  Furthermore,  the 
letters  of  the  missionaries  are  definitely  answered.  It  is  not  a 
sort  of  correspondence  in  vacuo.  Finally  items  of  special 
interest  in  missionaries’  letters  (when  not  confidential)  are 
duplicated  and  sent  to  different  members  of  the  Board.  To 
encourage  personal  letter  writing,  the  assurance  is  given  in 

10 


some  Board  offices  that  foreign  letters  will  be  opened  only  by 
one  of  the  Secretaries  and  not  by  a  clerk.  In  other  offices, 
the  burden  of  correspondence  is  so  great  that  only  letters 
marked  “Personal”  are  given  this  consideration. 

o 

(b)  Conferences  with  new  missionaries:  This  method  of 
co-operating  from  the  Home  Base  with  the  life  problem  of 
the  Mission  is  of  comparatively  recent  development.  Some 
Boards  spend  as  much  as  $5,000  in  bringing  their  new  out¬ 
going  missionaries  to  some  center  where  for  a  week  or  ten 
days  a  carefully  prepared  program  is  followed  and  the  Board 
is  able  to  communicate  to  its  missionaries  something  of  the 
aims  and  ideals,  the  principles  and  policies  of  its  missionary 
undertaking.  These  conferences  also  afford  opportunity  for 
social  fellowship  and  personal  acquaintance  between  mis¬ 
sionaries  and  the  authorities  at  the  Home  Base. 

(c)  Conferences  with  returning  missionaries:  Where  the 
preceding  type  of  conference  afforded  contacts  with  new  mis¬ 
sionaries,  this  type  provides  for  contact  with  missionaries  al¬ 
ready  in  service.  All  Board  officers  have  undoubtedly 
availed  themselves  in  the  past  of  the  opportunity  afforded  by 
the  furlough  periods  for  interviewing  their  missionaries  as  to 
the  progress  of  the  work.  More  recently,  however,  it  has 
been  proposed  to  hold  a  conference  of  the  missionaries  on 
furlough,  which,  of  course,  yields  richer  values  than  separate 
personal  interviews.  The  Presbyterian  Board  is  planning 
such  a  conference. 

(d)  Visits  to  the  mission  fields:  This  represents  one  of  the 
most  important  forms  of  co-operation  in  supervision  and  ad¬ 
ministration.  Many  questions  at  once  suggest  themselves : 

Who  should  go?  The  executive  officer  of  the  Board,  most 
certainly.  Preferably,  he  should  be  accompanied  by  some 
sympathetic  member  of  the  Board.  Deputations  of  several 
members  of  the  Board,  or  of  discerning  missionary  leaders  at 
the  Home  Base,  lay  or  clerical, — these  have  been  most  valu- 
,  able. 

How  often  should  such  visits  be  made?  Undoubtedly  the 
future  will  reveal  a  great  increase  in  the  number  of  those 
from  the  home  Church  who  will  undertake  visits  to  the  mis¬ 
sion  fields.  We  are  not  concerned  here  with  these  somewhat 
general  missionary  tours  for  pleasure  or  information.  We 
are  dealing  here  with  official  missionary  visits.  There  is  little 
likelihood  of  these  becoming  too  frequent.  On  the  contrary, 
such  visits  in  the  past  have  not  kept  pace  with  the  develop¬ 
ment  of  missionary  problems,  and  it  is  safe  to  say  that  once 
in  ten  years  (which  represents  the  present  frequency  of  such 
visits)  is  not  adequate. 

How  much  time  should  be  allowed?  The  first  visit  of  a 

11 


Board  Secretary  is  likely  to  be  too  hurried  because  of  his  de¬ 
sire  to  see  all  ot  the  helas  at  least  once.  Such  visits  have  a  gen¬ 
eral  value,  but  greater  value  conies  from  visits  where  time 
enough  is  allowed  for  separate  visits  to  each  station,  unhur¬ 
ried  interviews  with  each  missionary  concerning  his  work  and 
finally  a  conference  with  all  the  missionaries  together,  or 
with  such  groups  as  stand  related  to  specific  problems  that 
are  pressing.  This  means  that  a  journey  abroad  may  need 
to  be  limited  to  one  or  at  most  two  fields. 

What  previous  preparation  is  required?  There  is  a  double 
preparation  necessary :  first  of  the  Board  representative  who 
goes  abroad;  then,  of  the  Mission  which  is  to  be  visited.  Only 
so  will  time  be  saved  and  the  visit  yield  its  best  results. 

What  report  should  be  made  of  such  visits?  Naturally  a 
more  popular  report  of  missionary  conditions  will  need  to  be 
made  to  the  home  Church,  perhaps  not  in  a  printed  report, 
but  at  least  in  numerous  articles  and  addresses.  Another  re¬ 
port  dealing  with  the  technical  problems  of  the  work  and  out¬ 
lining  the  conclusions  reached,  should  be  carefully  prepared 
and  printed.  No  more  valuable  material,  contributing  to  the 
Science  of  Missions,  exists  than  that  to  be  found  in  the  print¬ 
ed  reports  of  Board  officers  and  deputations  visiting  the  mis¬ 
sion  fields.  Emphasis  is  laid  upon  the  printing  of  these  re¬ 
ports  not  merely  because  of  their  value  to  the  students  of 
missions,  but  because  a  printed  report  gives  to  each  mission¬ 
ary  of  the  Mission  visited  a  permanent  record  of  the  conclu¬ 
sions  reached  and  of  the  arguments  supporting  these  conclu¬ 
sions  ;  this  goes  far  toward  making  missionary  policy  effec¬ 
tive. 

TIL  THROUGH  WHOM  SHOULD  CO-OPERATION 
EROM  THE  HOME  BASE  BE  RENDERED? 

In  a  sense  the  methods  discussed  involve  implicitly  the 
agent  or  agency  through  which  supervision  and  co-operation 
mav  be  extended  to  the  foreign  field.  Nevertheless,  church 
polity  affects  in  measure  the  agency  used.  The  following  are 
actually  rendering  the  services  named : 

(a)  The  Board  Secretary:  In  the  majority  of  Boards,  the 
Secretary  is  the  chief  executive ;  in  a  few  cases,  especially  in 
Great  Britain,  it  is  the  president.  The  office  represents  more 
than  mere  Board  relationships.  It  represents  a  relationship 
to  the  whole  home  Church,  for  the  Secretary  of  a  Board  is 
not  ordinarily  selected  or  elected  by  the  Board,  but  by  the 
highest  judicatory  of  the  Church.  It  is  this  relationship  that 
enables  him  to  serve  the  widest  interests  of  the  Home  Base  as 
he  deals  with  the  Missions  across  the  sea. 

(b)  A  Bishop  or  Ecclesiastical  Official:  There  are  Churches 

12 


whose  episcopal  polity  introduces  ecclesiastical  authority  into 
the  problem  of  missionary  administration.  Mission  fields 
have  their  own  bishops.  These,  bishops  really  represent  the 
field  rather  than  the  Home  Base,  although  their  frequent  re¬ 
turns  to  the  Home  Base  and  their  identification  with  the  ec¬ 
clesiastical  life  of  the  home  Church  give  them  also  a  unique 
opportunity  for  maintaining  the  desired  contact  between  the 
Mission  and  the  Home  Base.  Investigation  reveals  advan¬ 
tages  and  disadvantages  in  the  system.  The  manifest  ad¬ 
vantage  lies  in  the  presence  of  a  single  executive  on  the  field 
who  may  make  real  the  much-coveted  supervision  and  unifi¬ 
cation  of  the  work.  The  system  calls,  however,  for  two  im¬ 
portant  safeguards:  first,  that  the  bishop’s  relation  to  the 
Board  of  Foreign  Missions  be  clearly  defined;  secondly,  that 
the  bishop  shall  actually  reside  within  the  mission  field  to 
which  he  is  assigned. 

(c)  The  Field  Committees  of  the  Board:  Some  Boards 
have  not  merely  assigned  certain  mission  fields  to  a  particu¬ 
lar  Secretary  for  supervision  and  for  the  handling  of  corre¬ 
spondence,  but  they  have  appointed  within  the  Board  from 
among  its  members  committees  to  superintend  these  fields. 
These  Field  Committees  at  the  Home  Base  acquire  across  the 
years  a  very  remarkable  knowledge  of  conditions  within  the 
areas  assigned  to  them  and  can  serve  most  efficiently  in  ren¬ 
dering  the  services  that  have  been  discussed.  The  American 
Board  (A.  B.  C.  F.  M.)  is  a  particular  illustration  of  this 
method. 

(d)  The  Executive  Secretary  or  Committee  of  the  Mission: 
Recent  years  have  witnessed  an  increasing  recognition  in  the 
foreign  field  of  the  need  of  a  committee  or  even  an  individual 
wbo  will  have  general  supervision  of  the  Mission  and  labor 
for  the  unification  of  its  policies  and  the  correlation  of  its  ac¬ 
tivities.  Where  there  is  such  a  Secretary  or  committee  a 
unique  agent  or  agency  is  afforded  for  the  correlation  of  the 
i  Base  and  the  Mission  in  the  carrying  out  of  missionary 
policy  and  the  exercise  of  effective  supervision. 

In  bringing  this  paper  to  a  conclusion,  the  Committee  on 
Methods  and  Principles  of  Administration  recognizes  that  its 
treatment  of  the  subject  can  only  be  regarded  as  suggestive. 
For  this  reason  it  requests  a  full  and  frank  discussion  of  the 
topic  by  the  entire  Conference.  The  committee  presents  no 
recommendation,  hut  simply  records  its  conviction  that  mis¬ 
sionary  efficiency  today  calls  for  a  renewed  sense  of  respon¬ 
sibility  on  the  part  of  Boards  and  Societies  at  the  Home  Base 
for  co-operation  by  them  in  the  supervision  and  administra¬ 
tion  of  the  work  in  the  foreign  field 

13 


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